


A Single Square of Light

by Gileonnen



Series: The Blade of the Vanguard [6]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Casual Guardian Parkour, Exhibitionism, M/M, Memories of One's Ex, Nighttime Cityscapes, Self-Doubt and Self-Sabotage, The Rarely Seen Top!Kalith, sex against a window
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:55:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23554891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gileonnen/pseuds/Gileonnen
Summary: When Kalith realizes that Zavala's working late, he offers himself as a distraction.
Relationships: Male Guardian/Zavala (Destiny)
Series: The Blade of the Vanguard [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1671325
Comments: 10
Kudos: 64





	A Single Square of Light

The lecture runs late. A number of Warlocks keep them bottled up for hours after the formal presentation, pontificating on their own pet theories under the guise of asking questions about Vex temporal engineering. Dr. Sundaresh, to her credit, answers them by redirecting the conversation to her evidence, but even her patient tone grows sharper as the minutes tick by. By the time the moderator manages to intervene in the crossfire, tempers are high, and Kalith is more than glad to escape into the cool night air.

He's always liked the City best at night, when every street beneath the Traveler's shadow is hung with lanterns. The smells of curries and stir fries linger on the air, warm and bright and enticing; the day's flowers fade, and the heady night blooms begin to unfurl. When he's out on patrol, Kalith sometimes forgets how keenly he loves this place--its craters and its skyscrapers and its people laughing as they make their way home.

He glances affectionately up at the wall, where the Vanguard offices look out over the City. There, beneath the floodlit platforms of the Tower, he sees a single square of light.

 _Zavala's working late again,_ he thinks, and fondness makes his chest feel warm and tight.

He could go to him now. Sit in the corner chair and catch up on some of Sundaresh's papers; offer to bring him some sweet milk tea and dinner, in the likely event that he hasn't eaten yet. Kiss his neck and trail his fingertips down that broad, lean chest, whispering filth into his ear until Zavala melts back into his arms.

They have so little time to themselves, between Vanguard business and Kalith's deployments. Surely it wouldn't be wrong to carve out a moment together, even if it's only to sit in companionable silence.

Before he can talk himself out of it, Kalith vaults from a shop awning to a balcony and then onto the low terra cotta rooftops. His soft shoes make scarcely a sound as he leaps from roof to roof, soaring over the heads of late-evening merrymakers and shopkeepers turning their signs to _Closed._ Paper lanterns sway in the breeze of his passage, and strangers glance up and curse reckless Guardians climbing buildings at all hours of the night.

He reaches the transmat pads at the foot of the wall, waiting scant seconds for the security system to accept Pelagia's handshake--then in a rush of light and data, he finds himself atop the wall with the mountains at his back. And here, the anxiety is waiting for him.

It was easier, with the Spider. He could show up unannounced, robes stained and trailing sparks, and the Spider's ceremonies would grind to a halt so that he could praise Kalith's strong arm and bloody sword. It was a game, Kalith thinks sometimes; all those who sued for the Spider's favor could see plainly that nothing but absolute devotion would win him.

Zavala doesn't play those kinds of games. He weighs his choices on the scales of tactical necessity, and Zavala's own needs always come up wanting.

If Kalith can do nothing else for him, perhaps he can tip those scales.

He tries to quiet his racing heart as he descends the maze of staircases that leads to Zavala's office. Even so, his hands shake on the railings, and his throat feels drum-tight. The wind sighs through the wires and ducts between the towers. His pulse echoes loud in his ears. _I could just sit in the corner chair and read about temporal engineering,_ he tells himself, but he knows all too well that it wouldn't satisfy him.

He knocks at Zavala's door and hears, faintly, "It's open."

Licking his lips, Kalith swings the door open and steps down into the office.

The golden light of Zavala's reading lamp only emphasizes the shadows under his eyes. He sets aside his tablet when Kalith enters, but Kalith recognizes the interface on the display--strike authorizations and equipment requisitions. Zavala insists on reviewing each request personally, no matter how many times Ikora suggests that they automate the process. _I owe my Guardians that much,_ he always says. For all his nerves, it makes Kalith smile to see it.

"Late night?" Kalith asks, coming around the desk to light a hand on Zavala's shoulder. Zavala tilts his head into Kalith's wrist and presses a kiss at the pulsepoint. "I could see you from all the way down in the street."

Zavala chuckles. "Hard to believe anyone's eyes are that good. Were you using a sniper scope?"

"I know your window. It was the only one with a light still on." Kalith lets himself knead the curve of Zavala's trapezius, then the taut muscle between clavicle and throat. Zavala carries a tightness in his jaw that Kalith had once thought looked heroic--the grim, resolute profile of a statue from a bygone age. Now, Kalith knows that Zavala can't help clenching his jaw when he's worried.

He bends down to kiss beneath Zavala's ear and feels more than hears the soft gasp that he makes in answer. "Could you use a distraction?"

"Like you wouldn't believe." Zavala reaches up to catch Kalith's cheek in the curve of his palm, tilting his head until their lips brush.

It's easier than Kalith had thought it would be to open to that kiss. He closes his eyes and breathes in the warm, clean scent of Zavala, all skin and soap and gunpowder; he sweeps his tongue across Zavala's lower lip and feels an indrawn breath urge him deeper.

Zavala kisses him as though he's forgotten the paperwork--as though there is nothing left in his world but Kalith. He turns all of that deliberate focus to unraveling Kalith's hair, gathering up the soft synthsilk of his robe, sliding his palm up over Kalith's thigh to splay at his hip.

He does not call Kalith _my treasure_ , but Kalith feels gloriously treasured all the same. He rests his knee in the gap between Zavala's thighs and wraps his arms around his neck. "Tell me what you need," he whispers, brow dipped to touch Zavala's brow. "Bend me over your desk, if you like. Ask me to kneel for you and suck you off. There's nothing you could want that I wouldn't give you gladly."

Zavala smiles, just a faint quirk of the lips. If Kalith hadn't been looking for it, he would have missed it entirely. "What if I wanted not to have to think for a little while?"

Kalith grins and kisses his forehead. "Then I'd say, get those clothes off and let me see you."

The Spider had liked to say that to him-- _Let me see you_ , he'd demand, and Kalith had gone weak at the knees. It's gratifying, in some indefinable way, how swiftly Zavala peels off his shirt to bare himself to Kalith. It feels like an old wound finally healed.

When Zavala stands naked before him, tall and pale in the warm yellow light, Kalith wants so very much to kneel and kiss his hand. There's a kind of majesty to him that speaks to Kalith on a primal level, that makes him long to offer himself in fealty and obey his every command.

Instead, he lays his palm across the plane of Zavala's chest and feels the skin prickle beneath his touch. He rolls one pebbled nipple beneath his thumb, teasing it with slow, unrelenting strokes, and watches Zavala's stoic expression break at last into rapture. "Please," Zavala whispers.

"Patience." Kalith gathers him close with a hand at the small of his back, kissing his collarbones, lavishing his tongue over the notch between them. A part of him longs to retrace every angular tattoo, to map the lattice of Zavala's markings with hands and tongue and teeth until he could draw them from memory--and, he realizes, there is nothing to stop him. There is no reason for him to hold himself back.

He trails his nails over the crisp line where blackwork meets pale blue, and he grins when Zavala tilts his hips up at the touch. His heavy cock drags against Kalith's stomach, caught on the fabric of his robes; the weight of it only makes Kalith dig his nails in deeper, bite down on Zavala's neck harder, until every searing kiss makes Zavala rock up into him.

He could take Zavala in hand and finish him like this. He could do whatever he wanted--spread Zavala out on the desk and ride him until he comes apart; wrap him in chains of Arc Light and get him off again and again with only the sharp shuddering pleasures of lightning. Make love to him slow and tender, and kiss his own come from Zavala's lips.

"Zavala," says Kalith, curving his palm to frame Zavala's face. The focused heat in his eyes is almost too much for Kalith to bear. "Would you let me fuck you against the window?"

Zavala smiles, sharp and decisive; there's a touch of wickedness in his expression that Kalith would never have imagined if he hadn't already swallowed down this man's cock. "The whole city might see."

"They'd have to have good eyes. Or a sniper scope."

"Or know where to look." Zavala presses Kalith's hand to his cheek and leans in for a long, lingering kiss. "Please. I want you inside me."

For the first time, Kalith realizes how his boyfriends must have felt when he said those words. Want courses through him like a charge, like a torrent; his cock aches to be touched. "Turn around," he says softly. "Spread your legs. I want your hands against the glass."

"Yes, sir," says Zavala, just a touch of irony in it--but he does as he's told, bracing himself against the window, arching his back as though in invitation. Heat fogs the window where his hands touch, where his breath gusts over the cold glass.

Kalith undoes the clasps of his robes and lets them fall away, then steps out of his underwear and his soft shoes. A moment's concentration, and he plucks a bottle of lubricant out of the datastream. It falls into his hand, already warm, and he fumbles off the cap.

He grazes his knuckles over the perfect, sculpted curve of Zavala's ass, and he feels Zavala shiver under him. "Please," Zavala says again, and this time there's an urgency in his voice that sets Kalith's nerves alight. "Don't make me wait."

Kalith tilts the bottle, letting a drizzle of lubricant pour down the cleft of Zavala's backside. "I don't want this to hurt," he murmurs against Zavala's shoulder. "Relax. Let me spoil you." He eases his fingertips down over the slick spill of oil, into the warmth between Zavala's legs--circling, smoothing down every tense muscle, until Zavala begins to unwind into his touch.

Zavala is handsome, when he stands untouchable atop the Tower. When he comes apart in Kalith's hands, though, he's breathtaking.

It's so easy for Kalith to curl up behind him, to fit their bodies together and map his tattoos with sharp, suckling kisses. To sink his fingers into Zavala, first shallow and searching, then deeper--to stroke that sensitive place within him until he's splayed against the window glass, rutting against his own reflection in his desperation for pressure.

When Kalith slides into him at last, all of him in one smooth stroke, it's easy to gather Zavala up into his arms and fuck him until they lose track of where one of them ends and the other begins. There's only a sweet filthy heat, the elation of friction, the twinned rhythm of their hearts and their breaths and their bodies shuddering together toward orgasm.

There's only the City laid out before them and the Traveler above, bright and vital and perfect.

Afterward, Kalith rests his cheek in the valley between Zavala's shoulder blades and trails lazy kisses over his back. "I hope I haven't kept you here even later," he mumbles, but he can't manage to muster any real regret.

Zavala nudges him up, then gathers Kalith into his arms and kisses his forehead. "As I said, I needed the distraction. Sometimes--sitting at this desk, with my back to the City, I forget that there's a world outside of the Tower. Thank you for showing it to me."

"And, ah, showing you to it."

With a wry look, Zavala lets go. "I'll deal with any illicit recordings at a later date. In the meantime, would you like to get some dinner?"

Kalith glances out over the City's sprawling lights, and he smiles. "I'd love to."


End file.
